I honestly never thought I'd ever, ever say this, but I miss history. Like, seriously and truly. I know that probably qualifies me for some mental disease, but I just can't help it.
The real title of this post should be "In Which James Gripes About Veritas by Exalting the Past". Except, I'm not 100% sure I'm exalting the past. There will definitely be much Veritas-gripeage, though. You have been warned.
For those of you who don't know, Veritas is a classical school. It uses the Omnibus (which is a fancy name for some curriculum that some old guy invented years ago. Presumably.) for all its curriculum... which means that students are required to take Latin, only learn history from old books (not even text books) that may or may not deal with actual history, and so on.
I highly doubt that I've learned anything in history this year. I'm not saying that De Toqueville's "Democracy in America" isn't a classic or isn't a good book. That's a battle I'm not even going to try and fight. But that book is not a comprehensive replacement to AN ENTIRE HISTORY CURRICULUM. It just doesn't work. Grr.
And then, Latin. I seriously didn't think I'd miss French, either, but I do. Desperately. I would kill to have French class back.
Yes, yes, I know that Latin has been used by scholars for ages and was a founding language for English. You know what else scholars held in common for ages? The idea that in order to heal someone who was sick you had to drain them of all their blood. You know how much Latin has actually helped me understand the English language? None.
Why are we striving to be like scholars of the past? Simple tradition? Pointless. Though it has its values, tradition for the sake of tradition (in this sense) results in a massive waste of life. If your reason for studying Latin is to learn the English language better, why don't you study the actual Latin that appears in our language instead of the whole FREAKING THING?!?!! How does knowing how to decline nouns help us in English?
Simple answer to that: it doesn't.
Of course, my mom alway says, "Oh, it's a discipline thing. It's good to learn to do to hard things..."
Alright, I'm a reasonable guy (on alternate Sundays). I'll concede that learning to do hard things is important. But, with a limited lifespan, learning to do hard things just for the sake of learning to do hard things with no actual benefit isn't just pointless - it's wasteful.
All these things and more are promoted by your local classical schools... which are only made bearable by the occasional really cool people you meet there. (Yes, Bonner, you should feel special. You just got a shout-out in one of my blogs.)
(I was going to say until next time in Latin, but Google Translate says that "Until next time" translates Donec tunc viscis... which then counter-translates to until next mistletoe juice. True story.)
James
Hater of Latin, Despiser of Pointless Wastes of Time (Unless He Enjoys Them), Totally Awesome Person, etc., etc.
"learning to do hard things just for the sake of learning to do hard things with no actual benefit isn't just pointless - it's wasteful."
ReplyDeletesomeone should tell my dad that. he tried to convince me to take calc II for the sake of learning to do hard things, uk, since ive obviously never done anything difficult, and since math is obviously the only hard thing in life. -.-
For the record, I took Latin for four years.
ReplyDeleteYou need an good teacher, first off, and then you need to realize that the most you learn from it is grammar. Once you learn how to translate, it gets fun, but only Latin to English. Declining nouns helped me with grammar.
It is good to learn hard things. Makes everything else seem easier. Like my pre-cal Trig class, taught me to like Algebra. =D
i agree with you. hard things, (LIKE PHYSICS) that are totally pointless ARE STUPID. very stupid.
ReplyDeletehahaha, the way you signed your name at the end of this one reminded me of the Mega Mind quote.. "I did my best, but he's too fantastic!"